


Promises

by AliceLiddle



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff with some mild Angst, Healthy Conversation and the Benefits of Therapy!, Inspired by "Promises" from Hadestown, M/M, Proposals, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25534960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceLiddle/pseuds/AliceLiddle
Summary: Inspired by the song "Promises" from the musical Hadestown.Simon and Baz have spent the last three years working on themselves and on their relationship. Now it's time for their next step together.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fool of a Book Wyrm (Lafeli85)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafeli85/gifts).



> The second I heard the song "Promises" from Hadestown, I couldn't stop thinking about what a perfect song it is for Snowbaz. Then, the phrase "any way the wind blows" appeared in the lyrics, and I knew I had to write a fic. I've been in a bit of a rut, creativity-wise recently, so to get out of it I challenged myself to use the lyrics from the song, in order, in this fic. I only used the first half, but if you look closely you'll find the following:
> 
> Orpheus?*  
> Yes?  
> You finished it.  
> Yes! Now what do I do?  
> You take me home with you! Let’s go, let’s go right now!  
> Okay, let’s go… how?  
> We’ll walk, you know the way! We’ll* just go back the way you* came.  
> It’s a long road, it’s a long walk, back into the cold and dark, are you sure you wanna* go?  
> Take me home.  
> I have no ring for your finger, I have no banquet table to lay, I have no bed of feathers, whatever promises I made; I can’t promise you fair sky above, can’t promise you kind road below, but I’ll walk beside you, love, any way the wind blows.  
> I don’t need gold, don’t need silver, just bread when I’m hungry, fire when I’m cold; don’t need a ring for my finger, just a steady hand to hold. Don’t promise me fair sky above, don’t promise me kind road below, just walk beside me, love, any way the wind blows.
> 
> *I changed Orpheus to Baz, and changed a conjugation, but otherwise it's all there! If you'd like to listen to the song, you can do so [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J3C9jKxF6w).
> 
> If you enjoy this, you can thank [Fool of a Book Wyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafeli85/pseuds/Fool%20of%20a%20Book%20Wyrm) for tagging me every week to share my writing on tumblr, since without her encouragement and inclusion even when I dropped off the face of the earth for a while I probably would have just left all of my WIPs unfinished forever. Also, you should go read her works, because they're all incredible <3

“Baz?” Simon has been attentive all day, despite how warm I know he must be in his suit, how bored he must have been through all of the speeches, and how uncomfortable he gets when he’s surrounded by strangers.

“Yes?”

“You finished it. I- I mean, you’re done. You did it. Congratulations and all that.” He shrugs, clearly struggling to find the actual words he wants to say, but I don’t mind. He doesn’t have to tell me that he’s proud of me, or that I worked so hard, or any of the other trite things people have been saying to me all day. He doesn’t have to tell me any of that, because I know that words are still sometimes hard for him, but also because he’s _shown_ me how he feels every step of the way. After that disastrous trip to America, and after the horrible affair at Watford, after Simon went back to therapy, and after I went to a few sessions too, things started to get better. Simon spent less time on the couch, and we both spent more time saying things instead of bottling them up. He started bringing me water, and tea, and food, and taking care of little things for me while I revised. He started sending me texts at odd hours, when he thought of words he couldn’t say when he wanted to. Most importantly, he started _trying_ again – he started showering, and eating, and drinking less, and going outside more, and bit by bit he became my Simon again, slightly scuffed and scarred, but no less lovely for it.

“Yes, Snow, I’ve finally finished with my degree. Now what do you think I should do?”

He grins at me, all sunshine and blue eyes and windswept curls.

“You should take me home with you.”

I can’t say no to him, I wouldn’t dream of it, but I’m still not nice enough to acquiesce immediately. If I always said yes the second Snow asked for anything I’d never get anything else done, even when he’s asking for the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

“Are you sure? You don’t want to wait for any more food to be brought out?”

“Do you?” I shake my head. “Then no, let’s go.” I raise an eyebrow, and he juts out his chin just the tiniest bit. “Let’s go right now!”

He grabs my hand, and while that’s something he’s done a million times, right now it feels different. His hand in mine feels the same way it did back in America, when every little touch was something important and unexpected and loaded with meaning I couldn’t understand.

“Okay, Snow, let’s go.” He squeezes my hand, and I let him lead me back to the car. I’d follow him anywhere.

When we’re all settled in the car (Simon even opened my door for me, every bit the doting boyfriend, squeezing my hand once more before letting me slide in), I can feel the change in the air; Simon wants to say something, and he’s trying to work up the words for it. It takes him the entire drive back to say anything, even through the extra graduation weekend traffic, but he still smiles every time I glace over at him. When I finally park and set the emergency brake he takes a deep breath.

“I really am proud of you, you know.”

“I know.” I cringe. “I mean, thank you.”

He grabs my hand over the gear shift. “No, I mean it. Baz, you did it. And, well, _we_ did it, too.”

His eyes are bright and happy, and I don’t even try to mask how much I love him.

“We did do it, you’re right. We both survived far too much academia, we both found jobs that hopefully won’t bore us to tears, and we have every right to be extremely proud of ourselves and each other.” I lean over and kiss him quickly. “I’m proud of you, too, Simon.”

“It’s not just that though. I’m proud of _us_.” He gestures between us with our clasped hands. “We’re here together, and I like who we are, as, y’know, _us_.”

The words are inelegant as they tumble out of his mouth, but they make up the second most beautiful phrase I’ve ever heard (the first being every “I love you” Simon gives me). They’re the result of years of therapy – at first just for Simon on his own, and then individual sessions for me as well, and finally with the addition of both of us together – and they make my heart feel like it’s about to come back to life with such force it might beat out of my chest. It’s been three years since Simon decided that he was ready to fight for _us_ , for our relationship, and for our mutual happiness, and even though things feel settled now, even though every conversation no longer feels like an accomplishment to display on the shelf and catch our breath after, this still feels big, especially compared to how we started.

_-Three Years Earlier-_

_“Hey, Baz?” Simon had said. We had been sitting on the couch together for a few hours, and this was the first he had spoken to me all day. I assumed the skype session that morning with his therapist had left him feeling a little drained, and so I wasn’t going to force him into conversation until dinnertime, instead just content to have him draw gentle circles on the back of my hand with his thumb and index finger._

_“Yes, love?” I tried not to tense up at my slip of the tongue, sometimes he didn’t react well to hearing any type of affection._

_A deep breath. “I- I want- I want to do this right.”_

_“Do what right?” I wanted to say that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I wasn’t sure that was true. He told me that he and his therapist had come up with a list of things to work on, and I was so scared of chasing him away that I never asked exactly what he was working on, or how he was doing. I tried to tell myself that I trusted him enough to let him come to me when he was ready to talk about everything, but that was just a lie to hold my own anxiety at bay._

_“Us. Our relationship. I know I told you that I was a terrible boyfriend, so you had advance notice,” he finally met my eyes and smirked just a little, and the knot in my chest shrunk infinitesimally, “but I don’t want to be terrible, I want to be a good boyfriend, and I want us to be a good couple. I just, I want to try, and I’m so scared to ruin everything, but my therapist told me that if things weren’t good now then I don’t have anything to lose.” He cast his eyes down to our hands again, and I had another moment of panic – how close were we to losing each other? “I don’t want to lose you though, Baz, I’m sorry, but I don’t.”_

_“Simon, can I hold you?” I asked every time before touching him at that point._

_He nodded, and I pulled him into me with more force than I’d used in ages, and for once I squeezed him like he wasn’t made of glass._

_“I don’t want to lose you either. I want to keep you forever, just like I told you last Christmas.” My words were almost muffled from how I’d buried my face in the crook of Simon’s shoulder, but I knew he understood when I felt his curls move up and down over my neck. I gave myself another moment to savor being close to Simon, to inhale his brown butter popcorn and bacon smell just in case things went wrong and I wouldn’t get to again for a while, and then I gently pulled away to look him in the eyes. “How do we do this?”_

_His jaw jutted out almost immediately, and I could feel his muscles tensing. He was finally fighting for something again, and he was fighting for_ us _._

_“I dunno. My therapist says… well, she’s not very helpful about it.”_

_“What does she say, Snow? Maybe we can build off her suggestions?” I wanted to sound confident, like I was prepared to fight for us too, but my voice wavered and turned my statement into a question._

_Simon ran a hand through his curls and then started playing with my fingers. “She says things like, ‘We’ll walk through different scenarios,’ and, erm, ‘You know the way to do things that will be best for you and Baz.’ But it’s not that easy, we can’t just ‘go back the way we came!’ We’re not Hansel and Gretel or some other stupid fairytale, I can’t just snog you in a fire until we decide to be a couple again!”_

_I squeezed his hand. “You’re always welcome to snog me, although I would prefer the situation to be less life-threatening.” He actually rolled his eyes at that. “But I agree with you. We can’t go back to where we began, and more importantly, I don’t think we should. Nothing about eighth year was healthy or normal, and if we want to have a shot at a good relationship we need to work through all of that, but we also need to try and give ourselves a new foundation. Hopefully one with less death and more mutual attraction?”_

_“I’ve always been attracted to you,” Simon had mumbled, and I’d raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I’ve always liked looking at you. I never really thought about, y’know, anything else to do with all that, but you- you’ve always looked, um, nice.” He was working up to a proper bluster, and I couldn’t resist poking him just a bit._

_“I look ‘nice’? That’s the only word you can use to describe me?” I let myself smile, I didn’t want to scare him off, I wanted him to know I was only teasing, for something about this to feel domestic and normal._

_“Shut up, you’re well fit and you know it.”_

_“Alright Snow, that’s enough of a start for today, you can keep singing my praises with better adjectives tomorrow. Back to the matter at hand,” I squeezed his hand still clasped in mine, “I do think your therapist is right, at least a little. To use her metaphor, we do have to go back the way we came, at least a little bit. We both have things that we need to work through, actual trauma that we need to process. I can’t guarantee that it’s not going to be a long road – Merlin, I think it’s going to be a ridiculously long walk for us to tread through all of this, and it’ll mean going back into memories that I consider to be some of the coldest and darkest moments of my life and probably yours too, but I’ll do it if it means I can stay with you and we can be happy._

_“I told you before that I chose you, Simon Snow, and I’m not going to change my mind. But, no matter how I feel, you can. And I, I lo-“ It was too soon for that. “Simon, I want you to be happy above all else. Are you sure you want to do this? To go to therapy and work through things that are going to hurt?” I was struggling not to cry by that point, I loved him so much and didn’t want him to suffer, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him either._

_For all that I felt like I was falling apart while trying to hold myself together for the both of us, Simon looked more resolute than I had seen him look in months, maybe over a year even._

_“I’m sure. But, I’m not going to do this alone, Baz. You said it yourself, we both have trauma to work through. I’ll keep going to therapy and working on my stuff if you give it a try too. We both deserve to be okay.”_

“I like _us_ too,” I say, not entirely certain where Simon is going with all of this.

He takes another deep breath. “So… you know how I said that now all of this,” he gestures to my diploma and robe in the backseat, “is finished, I wanted you to take me home?”

I nod.

“I meant it. I mean, I want you to take me _home_. Like, permanently. Together. With you. Urgh,” he tugs on his curls as I struggle to connect the dots.

“Simon, are you-“

“I’m saying that I want to be with you forever, in our own home, permanently!”

“Are you trying to _propose_?” I’m simultaneously delighted and horrified. I was _not_ expecting this.

“ _Yes!_ ” Simon’s face is red, and his curls are mussed, and his eyes are bright, ordinary blue, and each moment I love him more than I thought possible, which is why I have to say,

“No.”

His face falls immediately.

“No?”

“No. You’ve gotten to make all the other choices and lead all the other dramatic moments in this relationship, so you don’t get to propose on top of everything else. You’re supposed to wait a few weeks so I can finish getting everything ready, and then we’ll enjoy a wonderful evening together, at the end of which _you_ will agree to marry _me_.” He’s smiling again, so brilliantly that the sun could go out and I wouldn’t even notice.

“If you wanted to propose first you should have hurried up and done it already! It’s not my fault that I beat you to it.”

I take the bait, just for old time’s sake. We argue less, but I genuinely think that mild antagonism might be one of the easiest ways for us to express our affection.

“Do you even have a ring? Or did you just decide to propose because you got bored listening to the graduation speeches?”

He looks down, and I love how well I know him.

“I didn’t just get bored and decide today, I just… didn’t feel like waiting any longer.” He meets my eyes again, and the challenge is apparent. “But fine, if you want to be the one to propose, go on then, you can do it.”

“Now?” He nods. “Simon, I told you, I’m not prepared. I had a wonderful and meaningful day planned for the two of us, I’m not going to scrap all of that just because you’re impatient. Besides, I have no way to propose right now; I don’t have a ring sized for your finger yet, I have no food prepared, let alone a banquet or even a table to lay out a meal on – and that is entirely your fault, because you tried to propose to me in a _car_.”

The moron just shrugs, and he’s grinning like a lunatic. I love him, I love him, I love him.

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to start looking at places this week, and I was going to take you to pick out furniture when we found a new home.” I might be starting to spiral a bit, I’m feeling on the verge of tears and I think I might be suddenly overwhelmed. “I have no idea why I thought I could plan all this out without you ruining it, you gorgeous nightmare, but I was even going to get us a bed with a mattress made of feathers, like the ones we had at Watford, because I know you miss that bed sometimes, and Merlin knows your bed is atrocious. But now whatever promises I made to myself about giving you the perfect proposal are ruined, all because you couldn’t wait just a few more weeks, or even until we got out of the car!” I punctuate my last statement by pushing the center console a bit, just to get some of my emotions out of my body.

Simon is completely unfazed by my outburst, and just keeps on smiling. He takes both of my hands in his again, and chides me, “Be nice to the poor car, it didn’t do anything to you.” I huff, and visibly deflate a bit. “I’m sorry that I ruined your proposal. Let’s go inside, and I’ll pretend like I have no idea what you just said, and I promise I’ll be perfectly surprised when you do propose, alright?”

I’m already feeling a little silly.

“Alright, Simon.”

Three weeks later, Simon and I have picked out a bedroom set we both agree on, and are all set to sign the final papers for our new home. We spend the day walking through the library and the British Museum (“Like our first date.” “That wasn’t our first date. That would have been a horrible first date.” “I was with you; it was a good first date. Besides, I kissed you at the end of it, didn’t I?”), eating falafel from street vendors while watching the swans in the park, and finally eating dinner at a pub I know Simon likes that he thinks I hate. (I don’t hate it. I hate his table manners when he eats there, but that’s not the pub’s fault. They can’t help that I’m in love with a wild dog.) I wait until he’s finally done eating to ask him.

“Well Simon, is there anything else I need to do tonight?”

I kiss him before he can answer, and when I pull away he simply says, “Take me home?” and so I do.

I take Simon back home to the apartment he still shares with Bunce, the apartment that Shephard will be moving into next week, the apartment that we’ll be leaving at the end of the month, the apartment that Simon has called home for the last four years, and the apartment that he invited me to join him in as we fell in love and worked through our trauma. When we walk through the front door Simon tosses his keys into the bowl on the counter and turns around to take off his coat, just like he has a million times before. Usually, I would add my coat to the rack next to his and toe off my shoes, but this time I get down on one knee instead.

“Simon.”

He turns, confused, but then his face is pure joy.

“I fell in love with you when I was too young to know any better, and I haven’t stopped loving you, even for a minute. We’ve faced some of the worst things imaginable together, but you’ve also been by my side on the best days of my life. I love you, and I want to give you everything, but I can’t. I can’t promise you fair sky above, and I can’t promise you a kind road below either, but I can promise that I’ll walk beside you, love, no matter what else happens, and I’ll keep loving you, any way the wind blows.

“I had to be patient for most of my teenage years, waiting for you to love me back, and I know that I’ve made you be patient too. But Simon, I don’t want to wait anymore, will you marry me?”

The ring is a family heirloom, marked with the Pitch coat of arms, and I slide it onto Simon’s finger as he nods his head so fast his face almost blurs, saying, “Yes, of course, I love you, _Baz_.”

Later that night, when we’re curled up together on the couch trading sleepy kisses and trying to stay awake, Simon puts his hand on my chest.

“Hey, Baz?”

“Yes, Simon?”

“I just want you to know, I would have said yes no matter how you proposed. I mean, this was perfect, for both of us, and now we won’t have to tell people that I proposed without a ring in car on an impulse when they ask how we got engaged, but, I just wanted you to know that I was going to say yes no matter what. You didn’t have to do anything special.”

I kiss him again, because I can, because I have to, because I can’t help myself.

“I know. But I wanted us to have something nice. All I want to do is give you nice things, and this is something nice that we can both have forever.”

He kisses me again, then takes my face in his hands.

“Baz, you’re all I want. And I know that sounds right cheesy, but it’s true. I don’t need things, just you. I still have that whole duffle of leprechaun’s gold, and I don’t need fancy silver watches or silk suits like you do.” I scowl at him and he kisses my nose. “Just, give me bread or scones or something when I’m hungry, light fires when the weather’s bad enough that even I’m cold, and keep kissing me before bed every night.” I kiss him a few more times, to show that I understand. “Baz, I don’t even think that I needed a ring – although I’m keeping this one, I like it, and it’s a good notice for everyone else when they see it on my finger, they’ll know I’m yours,” three more kisses, to my ring on his finger, his hand, his mouth, “I just- All I need is a steady hand to hold when things aren’t so good, er, well, I guess actually I want to hold your hand all the time actually, but my point still stands. You don’t have to promise me all the stuff you said, ‘fair sky above’ and all that, don’t promise me a kind road below, just walk beside me, love, any way the wind blows.”

I beam at him; Simon is the only person who can make me smile like this, and hearing him essentially reiterate my proposal back to me fills me with so much happiness.

“I will. I love you.” It’s the truth, and the only thing I can say.

“ _Wicked._ ”

I kiss him to shut him up, just like I plan to every day for the rest of our lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come say hi to me on [tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/waywardfangirl)  
> I welcome any constructive criticism, since I haven't really done much fiction writing in my life, and since this is un-beta'd.


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